(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a music and light synchronization system, and more particularly, to an apparatus for synchronizing light signals to a music input signal, whereby light can be made to synchronize with music that is being played. This system helps to create light and music synchronization and can be used in systems where light and sound is being produced.
(2) Description of Related Art
Above mentioned system can be used in devices like TVs, Mobile phone, GPS-enabled devices, DVD player, MP3 and portable media devices etc. Using this system, light and visual effect can be made to synchronize with music signal which can be a mobile ring tone or music track from player. This creates interesting visual effect with light that blinks along with the music tempo and with brightness level auto adjusting corresponding to the volume of music.
FIG. 1 shows the use of conventional technology to create light and music synchronization effect. The system 10 uses a few building blocks to create this effect. First, music signal is inputted into a volume detection decoder 11. Volume detection decoder 11 is typically implemented by the Analog to Digital Converter (ADC) technique, further implemented by comprising the use of complex architecture such as the sigma delta system. Analog music signal is converted into digital signal for decoding purpose. After the analog music amplitude or volume has converted into digital signal, it will be passed into a PWM decoder 12. PWM decoder 12 typically consists of a lookup table to convert the decoded music amplitude into a Pulse Width Modulated (PWM) signal. In the decoding process, the larger is the amplitude, the larger is the duty cycle of the PWM signal. This PWM signal is in turn inputted into an LED Driver Unit 13 which can exemplarily be in the form of a transistor that has the ability to be turned on and off by the PWM signal and in turn passes current into the lighting unit 14 which can exemplarily be in the form of an LED that produces light when current passes through it.
There are some problems associated to the use of the abovementioned conventional technique. One of which is the use of the volume detection decoder 11. This system may result in many components being created and in turned cause high system development cost, besides being an expensive solution to offer. Another problem of using this conventional method is that Light brightness will be seen unchanged when music is either very loud or very soft. This is due to human eyes are not able to tell the difference in fine levels of LED brightness adjustment due to PWM signal changes. Using this type of system, LED light will be seen as static especially when music volume level is too high or low making Light output not able to synchronize with the music tempo and beat. The present invention aims to create a system that improves with technique of Light and music synchronization and at the same time solving the above mentioned problems of the present system.